Anti-dust filter. Air filters for PC. What provides a protective sheet

For a long time I put homemade air filters in computer systems cooling. In this article, I decided to summarize my experience and show some mods.

Why air filters in a PC?

First of all, to simplify further maintenance. Cleaning a couple of filters with a vacuum cleaner takes much less time than dismantling the cooling system, opening the power supply, cleaning radiators, fans and other pieces of iron from dust.
Well, the aesthetics are increasing, to the delight of fans of computer feng shui.

Why not buy ready-made filters in the store?

Air filters are rarely found in computer stores, more often in stores electronic components like a chip-and-dip. However, there is little choice. Making a filter at home from improvised materials is cheaper and takes less time than running around the shops. Well, it brings more pleasure, yes.

Well, now the slides

Socket 370. A female nylon stocking, a steel wire shackle and 4 ties were used. The shackle is needed to increase the filter area and to prevent the filter from being sucked into the fan. Before cleaning, a two-year layer of dust is visible.

In the PSU in front of a 12cm fan. A medical mask was used (only the inner layer), reinforced tape. The dust has just been removed with a vacuum cleaner, but a strip of dust is visible below, where the vacuum cleaner could not get through.

In a vertical PSU on the blower. Used medical gauze, stationery tape. All holes and cracks are sealed with transparent tape to prevent air from blowing past the filter. Before cleaning, a two-year layer of dust is visible.

• Do not use materials that are too thick, such as vacuum cleaner bags. Before using any material, try to breathe through it yourself.
• The design of the filter must prevent matter from getting into the fan blades and stopping it. Blocking the fan can lead to sad consequences.
• Reduce fan speed to a reasonable minimum. The less air is pumped, the less dust settles.
• Perhaps the reduction in airflow will have to be somehow compensated. For example, put better thermal paste.
• Fans of aggressive modding may be interested in zero filters in car dealerships.

Dust is one of the main enemies of computers and laptops. It is she who clogs the fan, settles on important "insides", including on the processor, preventing them from cooling down, which is common cause breakdowns. You can deal with this by periodically cleaning the system unit, "stuffing" the laptop from dust. However, this is a very dreary process: you need to disassemble the device, blow it out with a vacuum cleaner from the inside, and clean some parts manually. Therefore, many turn to another way out of the situation - a dust filter for the computer. We will discuss with you both purchased options and those that you can do yourself.

Why is dust dangerous?

As we have already mentioned, the accumulation of dust inside to overheat the elements of the system. And this is fraught with the following:

• The fan speed is increased. And this is not only extra noise, but also the reason for its imminent breakdown - the mechanism starts to work at the limit.
• The capacitors fail motherboard, power supply, video card.
• In an attempt to protect the processor from overheating, the system activates a mechanism that reduces its performance. This leads to annoying "hanging". And in emergency cases, when the processor reaches a critical stage, the computer turns off altogether.
• Dust can cause short circuit, static breakdown on the chip.

All of the above requires serious repairs, which will be clearly more expensive than a dust filter for a computer, even a purchased one. Why is it so useful, we will consider further.

What makes a computer dust filter stand out?

What you will find in stores is a canvas made of special breathable material with some options for attaching to the case of the system unit, laptop. Manufacturers of dust filters for a computer in Minsk, and many other cities, promise potential buyers the following:

• Long service life of the product.
• Nearly 90% air filtration quality.
• Little air resistance.
• Adjustable size and shape. In most cases, a large roll of canvas is sold, from which you yourself can cut a dust filter for a computer 120 mm x 170 mm or other sizes you need.
• Easy installation - basically the back of the material is adhesive, so it is quite easy to install it on the system unit.
• Additional noise reduction.
• Protection against ingress of insects into the device.

What does a protective sheet provide?

In general, all dust filters for PCs and laptops must provide the following:

• Reliable protection of the "stuffing" of the body from dust.
• Stable low temperature of the processor (and it heats up not so much from high performance, but from the dust that has settled on it).
• Long-term operation of components, provided by almost ideal conditions inside the case.

What are dust filters?

It turns out that protective canvases also differ in their main function. Consider their varieties using the example of dust filters for the Samokleykin computer, according to the manufacturer, developed on the basis of a patented technology. There are three types here:

• Fine cleaning. Material - polyurethane foam with open cells. Filtration efficiency up to 90% - the canvas is able to retain dust up to 5 microns in size. This allows you to achieve perfect cleanliness inside the "sistemnik".
• Long service. Material - non-woven fibrous polyester. It provides both excellent filtration and good dust holding capacity. Such a canvas helps the computer for a long time goes without maintenance.
• Low resistance. Material - woven polyester mesh. It passes air better than others, which helps it to minimally affect the temperature of the processor case. A few more features of the filter: insect protection, the ability to install on a laptop, netbook, between the fan and the case.

Installation options

It is allowed to install two filters at once: long service and fine cleaning. The first will capture large dust, the second - fine. Due to the large capacity of the long life web, the fine barrier will concentrate on collecting fine particles while minimizing fouling.

Filter cleaning

It goes without saying that the cleaning cloth will become clogged with dust and soil over time. Of course, you can remove the old filter and replace it with a new one. But it's easy to clean it up:

• The easiest and most gentle way is to vacuum it without removing it from the computer. So you do not damage the adhesive layer.
• A more serious cleaning is eating and washing in warm water. Next - natural drying. Somewhere the adhesive layer will withstand such a test, somewhere you will have to install a new one. Not all filters are machine washable, with powder or soap. The dust is perfectly washed out by simple rinsing in water.

And now we will come close to how to make dust filters for your computer with your own hands.

Homemade protective barrier

It is unreasonable to overpay for something that you can easily and quickly find and make yourself from improvised materials. In addition, dust filters for a computer are not available in every office equipment store - you will have to spend time ordering, go around a lot of points in their search.

We will present you the most reliable and uncomplicated options:

• Mounted on the fan itself, cooling the processor, inside the case. More precisely, first a wire shackle is installed on the mechanism - so that a piece of a woman's stocking does not get sucked into the blades. The canvas itself is attached with plastic ties.
• The inner layer of a medical mask (for the power supply housing). It is fastened with a wide adhesive tape (it is best to use reinforced tape) over the fan grille - you just need to cut out a canvas that is suitable in size.
• Medical gauze. It is best used for a vertical blown power supply. You can fix the material with ordinary stationery tape. It is also important to cover all the cracks and holes with adhesive tape so that dust does not pass through them bypassing the filter.

Such improvised means protect both the fans and the “stuffing” of the system unit from dust getting inside no worse than purchased means. You can also use a synthetic winterizer for additional protection, but no more than three layers - a denser concentration will make it difficult for air exchange.

Before you make a dust filter for your computer and install it, check out these helpful tips:

• Do not use materials that are too thick in the hope that they will definitely keep dust out of the computer. So you will aggravate the situation more: air exchange will decrease, which will contribute to overheating. Before using this or that canvas, conduct a small effective test - try to breathe through it yourself. If it's easy, then the material is fine.
• Consider installing the filter so that it cannot get into the fan blades and block its operation. This may damage the device and replace it.
• If possible, reduce the speed of the cooler. But to a reasonable extent. Everything is simple here: the less air it drives, the less dust settles.
• Reduced air flow can be compensated. For example, installing improved thermal paste.
• As a material for a protective barrier, zero filters from car dealerships will fit.

Protecting the "stuffing" of the computer from dust is a guarantee of long-term operation of the device. Special dust filters will help in this, which you can either buy in stores or make yourself from improvised materials.

I don’t know about you, but I’m already tired of cleaning my computer. The fact is that my PC is in the bedroom, and there is simply unbearably much dust from the sheets and pillows. I'm tired of disassembling the computer every month and "sucking out" mountains of dust. I decided to upgrade the PC and insert into it - computer filter! It has proven its unsurpassed effectiveness. After 6 months of daily operation, there was practically no dust in my system unit!

Remember: dust is the enemy of the computer, settling on the surface of parts, it worsens heat transfer, and overheating is never useful. Without good cooling, good overclocking and stable operation are impossible. And if your computer is buggy, maybe you just forgot to clean it? :)

The filter will be located in the space for CD drives, occupying two slots out of three, so you will have to forget about both the second drive and various 5.25" plugs. Next, measure the dimensions of the hole:

After that, we glue the box from PVC plastic according to the obtained dimensions, the box has a shelf for installing fans:

The box should be tightly inserted into the hole without cracks, because dust will then penetrate into all the cracks!

Inside view:

Two 80 mm fans are installed on the shelf, I connected them in parallel and soldered a common power plug. Subsequently, the adapter will be soldered:

They are fixed in an extremely unpretentious way, we simply wrap the resulting structure with a self-adhesive film:

And we heat the film with a hair dryer, for tight adhesion, at the same time eliminating all the cracks (A regular hair dryer is also suitable, but only in maximum heat mode):

The resulting system is tightly inserted into place.

Separately, I would like to note that it is extremely important to hermetically seal ALL existing holes and slots in the case so that air enters ONLY through the filter, otherwise the efforts spent on its manufacture will be in vain:

Then, from the same plastic, we cut out the elements of the internal design of the filter:

And we glue it with dichloroethane in this way. (for the red small handles, then it will be convenient to remove the frames if that)

Then we take an ordinary synthetic winterizer, it passes air well, at the same time it retains dust:

We glue the synthetic winterizer on the frames. (Practice has shown that three layers of synthetic winterizer are the most optimal thickness for a filter, a larger amount weakens the air flow too much, a smaller one allows dust to pass through).

After the glue dries, the excess must be cut off, but leave a margin for a snug fit.

Since just a synthetic winterizer does not look very nice, to give the filter a more aesthetic look, I decided to make a protective mesh (black in the photo):

WITH reverse side the mesh is simply fused into the plastic with a soldering iron:

A fully assembled system will end up with nine fans. This is a lot and they will make a lot of noise, so I decided to make some of the most vociferous rotation regulators in order to regulate airflow and noise as desired.

I have already suggested my mounting option and now I would like to try to find out which material is preferable to use in filters. In preparation for writing the article, I came across various options for filter materials. But some of the most popular are tights and faux chiffon. Another frequently used material is synthetic winterizer, but its testing will remain outside the scope this review, because it deals with materials that can primarily be used with magnetic vinyl, and with synthetic winterizer this mounting option is very difficult to implement.

First, I decided to clarify the question: how much can filters reduce air flow and how this affects the temperature of the cooled components. To clarify this, it was decided to use a specially purchased case of the "medium tower" form factor. This miracle of Chinese engineering is nothing remarkable, except for a seat for a 120 mm fan on the side wall.

advertising

Inside, right in front of the fan, I placed HDD, and on its board I glued a thermocouple from the Lamptron FC5V2 fan controller with electrical tape. The Winchester worked without load, and the testing methodology itself boiled down to the following: the computer turned on with a filter on the fan, then the maximum temperature was recorded, after which system unit turned off for 30-40 minutes, allowing the hard drive to cool, then a new filter was tried. Each time, warming up to the maximum temperature was achieved in about 20 minutes. Now let's look at the objects of verification themselves.

Three types of filters were used for it: from artificial chiffon, from black nylon tights, with a density of 40 den, and a factory-made Lamptron UV Sensitive Fan filter.

advertising

The filter produced by Lamptron is a metal mesh on a plastic frame, with a mesh size of about 1 mm. Comes with a set of bolts for mounting.

It can be bought in Moscow, so, in my opinion, it will good example for comparison with homemade options. Almost from the beginning I was sure that each of the filters would have a slight negative impact on the airflow, since they are made of sufficiently durable materials that, for their main purpose, should not interfere with the passage of air, which was confirmed by testing. For ease of perception, the results obtained are presented in the form of a diagram:

For comparison, I checked the temperature hard drive in the mode of complete absence of airflow, in a completely closed system unit.

As you can see, among the filters tested, the Lamptron product is the least obstructive to airflow, but this is not surprising, because the mesh size in the mesh is much larger than that of chiffon or tights. The pantyhose filters had the worst effect on the temperature, but the difference was only 0.4 degrees Celsius when compared with the mode without filters, which, in my opinion, is completely uncritical.

But, on the one hand, the test on the simulator is good, but on the other hand, it is somewhat far from reality. Therefore, the role of the guinea pig tried on the main system unit in the house.

test stand

• Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula;
• Processor: i7-3930K;
• Cooling system: CBO;
• RAM: 8 GB DDR-III 1333 MHz Samsung, @2133 9-10-10-24-1T;
• Storage: OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB;
• Power supply: SeaSonic X-850, 850 W;
• Case: Cooler Master HAF 932.

Test Methodology

Air circulation in the case is provided by four Noiseblocker Multiframe S-Series MF12-S2 fans - three on the CBO radiator and one front. I turned off the fans on the radiator, and put a filter on the front fan and fixed the maximum temperature of the processor and video card. In theory, this was supposed to show how the installation of dust filters would affect the real system unit.

Test results

But the result was again disappointing. When installing any of the dust filters, the temperature changed as you like. It even happened that after their removal it increased, which is completely illogical. Several reasons have been found for this:

• Various load on computer components (although I did not touch the PC at that time, but, for example, the antivirus could be updated, after which the processor temperature immediately increased by a degree).
• The influence of external air currents that enter the case through many ventilation holes, it is impossible to predict their impact.

After tormenting myself with tests for two evenings, I decided that the lack of a result was also a result. The processor temperatures in full passive were around 60-61 degrees, and the video card heated up to 48-49 degrees with any of the filters. This makes it possible to conclude that the effect of filters with a thin filter cloth has such a negligible effect on the air flow that it can be safely ignored.

Another important parameter of dust filters is the actual dust protection. Therefore, I tried to find out which of the presented materials is best suited for this.

But here an ambush awaited me. The fact is that there is no testing of dust filters for a computer on the network! Only industrial options or automotive, but in any case, the tools and methods were unattainable for me. You can't just hang a filter on a working system unit, because it's impossible to keep the same conditions throughout the testing.

advertising

The solution came unexpectedly: use flour as a dust simulator! Immediately I stocked up on a bag of first-class flour and a sifter. Since it was necessary to check the filter in conditions as close as possible to combat, it was decided to use the housing already described above.

But it was not there! If the case is in the normal position, then the fan power is not enough to capture the flour. I decided to put it on its side and pour flour in even small portions, but after a short period of time it simply clogged all the holes in the filter and no longer got inside the case. You had to either shake the filter or rub the flour with your fingers. But in this case, it was possible to find out only one thing: which material is best suited as a sieve, but not a dust filter. Inside, an even spot of flour did not work out, it settled evenly over the entire body and removing it from all corners and crevices was a big problem. This is a failure.

I again thought about how to win all this. In the end, thinking that the perforation on the side wall interfered with the airflow, it was decided to use another test stand, without a case, but with a fan. The black velvet fabric that came with the Seasonic power supply now acted as a marker.

The testing methodology has undergone some changes. Now I poured the most even layer of a tablespoon of flour on the filter, and then turned on the fan for exactly 10 minutes. And photographed the resulting spot.

advertising

Only in this way did I get adequate results that could be used.

The first test was a filter with artificial chiffon.

The second on the list was a filter made of nylon tights, with a density of 40 den.

advertising

The result compared to chiffon, although slightly different, is still noticeable. Let's see how the lamptron metal mesh filter performs.

You can immediately see the difference between its result and the indicators of previous filters - strong traces of flour along the rotation of the fan blades. I must say that it was problematic to make an even layer with this filter - the flour just immediately began to fall down.

From all the results, we can conclude that the pantyhose filter provides the best dust protection, but at the same time, this material reduces airflow the most, which will directly affect the temperature of the components inside the system unit.

advertising

And the Lamptron filter showed the worst results, which, by the way, is not surprising - a metal mesh is suitable for stopping only larger dust particles such as fabric lint or pet hair.

Conclusion

And now it's time to sum up. In this material, a universal method for attaching dust filters was considered, which can be used with most cases. In addition, based on the results of the testing, I tried to find out which material would be best for use as dust protection.

In my opinion, many readers will be interested in the question of the cost of making homemade filters. Since various stationery can be found in everyone, the most expensive investment will be the purchase of magnetic vinyl. A square meter of vinyl, 1.5 mm thick, costs about 500 rubles in Moscow. This sheet is enough to make several filter options for all the vents in the computer case, so the price can be called acceptable. The final price tag may also be affected by the need to purchase filter material, but here everything already depends on the personal preferences of each. By the way, the Lamptron filter costs no more than 100 rubles in Moscow retail.

advertising

• Mounting versatility for different case models;
• Providing better dust protection;
• Ease of manufacture.

A significant disadvantage is possible problems with the purchase of a small sheet of magnetic vinyl.

Ultimately, it's up to the reader to choose. There are only two options here: either, with some effort, make effective home-made filters on your own, or simply buy ready-made ones.

Maxine Roman aka Zebralet

advertising

• serj for their invaluable contribution to the article.

I think it's not worth explaining where dust comes from in a computer. Majority modern computers have an air cooling system - cooling air, passing through the computer case, takes heat from its elements. But leaves dust.

Most of you are probably familiar with the situation in the photo. A layer of dust accumulated on the PC elements impairs heat dissipation, which leads to overheating and system failure. Also, dust settling on the fan blades creates an imbalance, which increases the vibration of the latter, and hence the overall noise.

The most elementary thing is with a vacuum cleaner, but at the same time you will have to partially disassemble your PC, for example, in order to clean the radiator CPU or video cards, you will have to remove the cooler (cooling fans) from them. The recommended frequency of such cleaning is once every six months.

I solved this problem on my PC by installing a dust filter for my PC. As a filtering material, after all kinds of tests, a synthetic winterizer was chosen, because. it is well ventilated and retains dust quite well. The filter should be made as large as possible - the larger the area, the less air resistance.

And in real life it looks like this:

Front view:

Side view:

Filter after two months:

After installing a dust filter for the computer, the need to clean the PC disappeared. Now it is enough once a month (for prevention) to vacuum the filter without disassembling the case - through the front panel.

The latter was made independently by gluing two ventilation grilles into the old front panel, after which it was painted with spray paint. In general, it turned out well, for comparison, the factory building in the photo.

The cost of manufacturing a computer case, excluding the time spent, amounted to 600 rubles.

Finally, a video dessert. Tough prank (I would probably turn gray :-)):